Colombia's conflicts

The FARC turns the screws

Applying the IRA's lessons

UNTIL recently, Colombia's armed conflicts seemed hopeless, but remote. Left-wing guerrillas and their right-wing paramilitary foes battled for control of territory and drug-trafficking routes in the far-flung countryside, while Bogota's businessmen loosened their ties over martinis in fashionable city restaurants.

No longer. Even before, but especially since, the collapse in February of three years of peace talks, the FARC, the largest guerrilla group, has started to bring its terrorist war to the cities, with a wave of bombings and brazen political kidnappings. This coincides with the campaign for a presidential election on May 26th, which polls suggest will be won by Alvaro Uribe, who has promised tougher military action against violence. The FARC's response seems designed to demonstrate to urban Colombians that their armed forces are unable to protect them.

This month began with a particularly cruel bombing in Villavicencio, a commercial centre in the llanos (tropical lowlands). Police say that FARC militiamen first exploded a dynamite stick in a crowded night-club area, drawing spectators to the scene. A second, larger, explosion then killed 12 and wounded 70, also damaging a radio station that had received threats from the FARC for broadcasting press releases from Mr Uribe. That was the tenth bomb in the llanos this year, according to the army.

Days later, smaller bombs designed to spread panic exploded in Bogota. On April 14th, Mr Uribe escaped unharmed from a murder attempt, while campaigning in Barranquilla. A bomb damaged his armoured jeep, and killed three passers-by. The army believes, as its commander told a congressional hearing in Washington this week, that in its more frequent and sophisticated use of explosives, to terrorise civilians as well as kill soldiers, the FARC is applying lessons learned from three IRA men captured last year in Bogota.

However that may be, the FARC's prowess at kidnapping is home-grown. Disguised as an army bomb-disposal squad, guerrillas entered the department assembly in Cali, Colombia's third city, on April 11th and evacuated 12 assembly members into a waiting bus, never to be seen again. Ten days later the FARC abducted the governor of Antioquia department, together with a former defence minister, from a peace march near Medellin.

These hostages join Ingrid Betancourt, a presidential candidate, a senator and six congressmen already being held by the FARC. The guerrillas hope to exchange these prisoners for their own jailed commanders. In the past, they might have got their way. But now Colombians are less inclined to appease the FARC.

Mr Uribe, an independent Liberal, embodies that new mood. His tough stance has catapulted him to around 50% in the opinion polls. President Andres Pastrana, having tried and failed to make peace with the FARC, seems to have taken note. As the army pursued the Cali kidnappers into the mountains around the city, one of the hostages called a local radio station. He pleaded for the army to stand down to avoid civilian casualties. Last year, after a similar mass abduction, Mr Pastrana called the army off. This time, so far at least, he has not.

The FARC's calculation is that public support for a firm line will be undermined by repeated bombings and kidnappings. Though strengthened by American military aid, the armed forces are hopelessly overstretched in trying to contain the 17,000-strong FARC, let alone the 10,000 paramilitaries. The police claim to have thwarted many attacks, defusing 87 bombs so far this year. They will have their work cut out in the coming months.